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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>Do Childcare Providers Have Rights When Dealing With Department of Family Protective
mysonsmom1 06:52 AM 10-04-2013
Ive been in business for over two years and I had my first major incident last week. A highly rambunctious daycare child decided to climb a tree during outside play time and fell. It took no more than 3 seconds from the time that I saw him standing near the tree to the time he placed his foot on the tree and lost his footing. He ended up cut his leg on one of the small branches sticking out on the bottom of the tree. He had to get three stitches. I don’t let any of my children climb trees for safety reasons, but every now and then they would try. Usually, when I tell them to get down they do. To mention, I was no more than three steps away from him when this happened because I was trying to stop another child from putting something into his mouth.

Immediately after the incident, I recognized that I would never be able to stop the children from trying to climb the tree so I had it cut down the next day and tree branches sticking out of the other small trees were also trimmed.

I contacted DFPS myself because the child had to go to the doctor. Its required by the state to do so. It was a nightmare dealing with the state inspector. She stayed here for two hours. It was like she was here just digging and digging for something wrong and she wasn’t satisfied until she found the smallest thing. I gave her all the paperwork that she asked for, she continued to make comments about other things not related to the inspection, listened in on me as I fed the children. Things like (Did they wash their hands? You know that you have to serve water. Why is this here? You have a lot of people with background checks, who is this? ect, ect.)

The kids could see that my attention was not totally on them so they acted out horribly. One child purposely locked himself in the bathroom which never happens and another child played on the floor kicking another child in his face causing a bruise. Two hours was waaaayyyyy tooooo looonnnng and the kids really took full advantage of my lack of attention because of her need for it. She stayed so long that the children wouldn’t even sleep during nap time. I felt like she had no respect, nor did she try to go to a room to work quietly away from the children so that they could have their quiet time. She talked out loud, didnt try to wisper or respect their time. I felt totally violated by her because she was so intrusive and it was like she tried really hard to find something wrong with the daycare home. Looking in every corner.. I know that working with children, I lose some of my rights because its their job to protect them.. but when does professional respect go out of the door.

She is thinking about writing me up because she said that I didn’t respond to the incident in time so it seems like I wasn’t supervising the children. One of the children told her that I was sitting down so its more so the childs word against mine.. As an adult, I usually would trust a child instead of an adult because I trust them more to tell the truth.. In this case, I was telling the truth and if she doesn’t believe me then so be it. I know that I am not superwoman and there was no way for me to intervene in 3 seconds.

My question is- Do childcare providers have rights? When you have an inspector that comes in and is downright set on catching you doing something wrong when you do everything in your power to do things by the book? I try my best to keep the children safe, having fun, learning, and eating healthy meals. I’m upset because two houses down from me is an illegal daycare and no one has come to catch her standing outside talking for 10-20 min while she still has children inside of the house. This morning, this same woman had what looked like a two year old out in the front yard while cars zoomed by while she picked growing grass with her hands. Ive made tips in the past but nothing has been done about it. A previous employee of mine opened up an illegal daycare and took two of my daycare children with her.. I don’t see anyone knocking on her door when she’s feeding kids TV dinners on the living room floor with a dog within hands reach. I take full responsibility for the fact that the child got hurt while in my care. I have even taken measures to prevent it from happening again. Yet, am I wrong to feel like something isn’t right?
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butterfly 07:09 AM 10-04-2013

I'm sorry I can't offer any advice for you! Just hugs..
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LaLa1923 07:12 AM 10-04-2013
Originally Posted by mysonsmom1:
Ive been in business for over two years and I had my first major incident last week. A highly rambunctious daycare child decided to climb a tree during outside play time and fell. It took no more than 3 seconds from the time that I saw him standing near the tree to the time he placed his foot on the tree and lost his footing. He ended up cut his leg on one of the small branches sticking out on the bottom of the tree. He had to get three stitches. I don’t let any of my children climb trees for safety reasons, but every now and then they would try. Usually, when I tell them to get down they do. To mention, I was no more than three steps away from him when this happened because I was trying to stop another child from putting something into his mouth.

Immediately after the incident, I recognized that I would never be able to stop the children from trying to climb the tree so I had it cut down the next day and tree branches sticking out of the other small trees were also trimmed.

I contacted DFPS myself because the child had to go to the doctor. Its required by the state to do so. It was a nightmare dealing with the state inspector. She stayed here for two hours. It was like she was here just digging and digging for something wrong and she wasn’t satisfied until she found the smallest thing. I gave her all the paperwork that she asked for, she continued to make comments about other things not related to the inspection, listened in on me as I fed the children. Things like (Did they wash their hands? You know that you have to serve water. Why is this here? You have a lot of people with background checks, who is this? ect, ect.)

The kids could see that my attention was not totally on them so they acted out horribly. One child purposely locked himself in the bathroom which never happens and another child played on the floor kicking another child in his face causing a bruise. Two hours was waaaayyyyy tooooo looonnnng and the kids really took full advantage of my lack of attention because of her need for it. She stayed so long that the children wouldn’t even sleep during nap time. I felt like she had no respect, nor did she try to go to a room to work quietly away from the children so that they could have their quiet time. She talked out loud, didnt try to wisper or respect their time. I felt totally violated by her because she was so intrusive and it was like she tried really hard to find something wrong with the daycare home. Looking in every corner.. I know that working with children, I lose some of my rights because its their job to protect them.. but when does professional respect go out of the door.

She is thinking about writing me up because she said that I didn’t respond to the incident in time so it seems like I wasn’t supervising the children. One of the children told her that I was sitting down so its more so the childs word against mine.. As an adult, I usually would trust a child instead of an adult because I trust them more to tell the truth.. In this case, I was telling the truth and if she doesn’t believe me then so be it. I know that I am not superwoman and there was no way for me to intervene in 3 seconds.

My question is- Do childcare providers have rights? When you have an inspector that comes in and is downright set on catching you doing something wrong when you do everything in your power to do things by the book? I try my best to keep the children safe, having fun, learning, and eating healthy meals. I’m upset because two houses down from me is an illegal daycare and no one has come to catch her standing outside talking for 10-20 min while she still has children inside of the house. This morning, this same woman had what looked like a two year old out in the front yard while cars zoomed by while she picked growing grass with her hands. Ive made tips in the past but nothing has been done about it. A previous employee of mine opened up an illegal daycare and took two of my daycare children with her.. I don’t see anyone knocking on her door when she’s feeding kids TV dinners on the living room floor with a dog within hands reach. I take full responsibility for the fact that the child got hurt while in my care. I have even taken measures to prevent it from happening again. Yet, am I wrong to feel like something isn’t right?
Yes! you absolutely do! Contact her supervisor immediately. If it were me I would've called her super right in front of her! The providers in my area complained on their inspector and she was moved to a different area and now has a much smaller case load.
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Play Care 07:12 AM 10-04-2013
Originally Posted by mysonsmom1:
Ive been in business for over two years and I had my first major incident last week. A highly rambunctious daycare child decided to climb a tree during outside play time and fell. It took no more than 3 seconds from the time that I saw him standing near the tree to the time he placed his foot on the tree and lost his footing. He ended up cut his leg on one of the small branches sticking out on the bottom of the tree. He had to get three stitches. I don’t let any of my children climb trees for safety reasons, but every now and then they would try. Usually, when I tell them to get down they do. To mention, I was no more than three steps away from him when this happened because I was trying to stop another child from putting something into his mouth.

Immediately after the incident, I recognized that I would never be able to stop the children from trying to climb the tree so I had it cut down the next day and tree branches sticking out of the other small trees were also trimmed.

I contacted DFPS myself because the child had to go to the doctor. Its required by the state to do so. It was a nightmare dealing with the state inspector. She stayed here for two hours. It was like she was here just digging and digging for something wrong and she wasn’t satisfied until she found the smallest thing. I gave her all the paperwork that she asked for, she continued to make comments about other things not related to the inspection, listened in on me as I fed the children. Things like (Did they wash their hands? You know that you have to serve water. Why is this here? You have a lot of people with background checks, who is this? ect, ect.)

The kids could see that my attention was not totally on them so they acted out horribly. One child purposely locked himself in the bathroom which never happens and another child played on the floor kicking another child in his face causing a bruise. Two hours was waaaayyyyy tooooo looonnnng and the kids really took full advantage of my lack of attention because of her need for it. She stayed so long that the children wouldn’t even sleep during nap time. I felt like she had no respect, nor did she try to go to a room to work quietly away from the children so that they could have their quiet time. She talked out loud, didnt try to wisper or respect their time. I felt totally violated by her because she was so intrusive and it was like she tried really hard to find something wrong with the daycare home. Looking in every corner.. I know that working with children, I lose some of my rights because its their job to protect them.. but when does professional respect go out of the door.

She is thinking about writing me up because she said that I didn’t respond to the incident in time so it seems like I wasn’t supervising the children. One of the children told her that I was sitting down so its more so the childs word against mine.. As an adult, I usually would trust a child instead of an adult because I trust them more to tell the truth.. In this case, I was telling the truth and if she doesn’t believe me then so be it. I know that I am not superwoman and there was no way for me to intervene in 3 seconds.

My question is- Do childcare providers have rights? When you have an inspector that comes in and is downright set on catching you doing something wrong when you do everything in your power to do things by the book? I try my best to keep the children safe, having fun, learning, and eating healthy meals. I’m upset because two houses down from me is an illegal daycare and no one has come to catch her standing outside talking for 10-20 min while she still has children inside of the house. This morning, this same woman had what looked like a two year old out in the front yard while cars zoomed by while she picked growing grass with her hands. Ive made tips in the past but nothing has been done about it. A previous employee of mine opened up an illegal daycare and took two of my daycare children with her.. I don’t see anyone knocking on her door when she’s feeding kids TV dinners on the living room floor with a dog within hands reach. I take full responsibility for the fact that the child got hurt while in my care. I have even taken measures to prevent it from happening again. Yet, am I wrong to feel like something isn’t right?

I am so sorry! But you are definitely not alone!
There was an excellent group family day care in our town for many years. Anyone who had kids there raved about it. A few years ago they had an incident in which a child who was sitting on a couch fell off and broke her collarbone - according to the child and the providers, the child was sitting on the couch seat and another child climbed on to sit next to her, the girl who was sitting just kind of tumbled over. It was so "silly" looking that the provider thought she was kidding and was about to tell her not to do that as she didn't want her to get hurt, etc. The providers did *everything* correctly - contacted who they needed to, documented, etc. But the experience of having the inspectors come in to investigate (and insinuate) was more then they could deal with. They closed shortly thereafter.
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Cradle2crayons 07:15 AM 10-04-2013
Originally Posted by mysonsmom1:
Ive been in business for over two years and I had my first major incident last week. A highly rambunctious daycare child decided to climb a tree during outside play time and fell. It took no more than 3 seconds from the time that I saw him standing near the tree to the time he placed his foot on the tree and lost his footing. He ended up cut his leg on one of the small branches sticking out on the bottom of the tree. He had to get three stitches. I don’t let any of my children climb trees for safety reasons, but every now and then they would try. Usually, when I tell them to get down they do. To mention, I was no more than three steps away from him when this happened because I was trying to stop another child from putting something into his mouth.

Immediately after the incident, I recognized that I would never be able to stop the children from trying to climb the tree so I had it cut down the next day and tree branches sticking out of the other small trees were also trimmed.

I contacted DFPS myself because the child had to go to the doctor. Its required by the state to do so. It was a nightmare dealing with the state inspector. She stayed here for two hours. It was like she was here just digging and digging for something wrong and she wasn’t satisfied until she found the smallest thing. I gave her all the paperwork that she asked for, she continued to make comments about other things not related to the inspection, listened in on me as I fed the children. Things like (Did they wash their hands? You know that you have to serve water. Why is this here? You have a lot of people with background checks, who is this? ect, ect.)

The kids could see that my attention was not totally on them so they acted out horribly. One child purposely locked himself in the bathroom which never happens and another child played on the floor kicking another child in his face causing a bruise. Two hours was waaaayyyyy tooooo looonnnng and the kids really took full advantage of my lack of attention because of her need for it. She stayed so long that the children wouldn’t even sleep during nap time. I felt like she had no respect, nor did she try to go to a room to work quietly away from the children so that they could have their quiet time. She talked out loud, didnt try to wisper or respect their time. I felt totally violated by her because she was so intrusive and it was like she tried really hard to find something wrong with the daycare home. Looking in every corner.. I know that working with children, I lose some of my rights because its their job to protect them.. but when does professional respect go out of the door.

She is thinking about writing me up because she said that I didn’t respond to the incident in time so it seems like I wasn’t supervising the children. One of the children told her that I was sitting down so its more so the childs word against mine.. As an adult, I usually would trust a child instead of an adult because I trust them more to tell the truth.. In this case, I was telling the truth and if she doesn’t believe me then so be it. I know that I am not superwoman and there was no way for me to intervene in 3 seconds.

My question is- Do childcare providers have rights? When you have an inspector that comes in and is downright set on catching you doing something wrong when you do everything in your power to do things by the book? I try my best to keep the children safe, having fun, learning, and eating healthy meals. I’m upset because two houses down from me is an illegal daycare and no one has come to catch her standing outside talking for 10-20 min while she still has children inside of the house. This morning, this same woman had what looked like a two year old out in the front yard while cars zoomed by while she picked growing grass with her hands. Ive made tips in the past but nothing has been done about it. A previous employee of mine opened up an illegal daycare and took two of my daycare children with her.. I don’t see anyone knocking on her door when she’s feeding kids TV dinners on the living room floor with a dog within hands reach. I take full responsibility for the fact that the child got hurt while in my care. I have even taken measures to prevent it from happening again. Yet, am I wrong to feel like something isn’t right?
First, let me say I'm so sorry this happened to you and

Next, accidents happen. And a child cutting themselves in a small branch on r bottom of the tree is truly a freak accident. Now, if the child had made it to the top, nobody saw him, and he fell and broke his arm, that's different.

And honestly, who would have ever thought about a small branch on the bottom of the tree. It would take me years to remove all of those.

And she has no proof of exactly how many seconds it took you or didn't take you to get to the child. I'm unaware there's a stopwatch in the sky timing our responses. If she write you up for response time, be sure you appeal it.

It sounds like you did everything right. But sometimes, doing everything right isn't good enough for the powers that be.

How are the parents handling everything ?

Did she find any other violations in the home?
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Play Care 07:17 AM 10-04-2013
Originally Posted by LaLa1923:
Yes! you absolutely do! Contact her supervisor immediately. If it were me I would've called her super right in front of her! The providers in my area complained on their inspector and she was moved to a different area and now has a much smaller case load.
I do think there is a difference between an overzealous licensor and an investigation into an incident where a child was hurt badly enough to need medical care. They do tend to not be as "nice" because they really are trying to make sure things happened as said and that no other children will be hurt while in your care. Unfortunately too many providers have lied about why/how a child was hurt in their care for them to come in and believe everything a provider says 100%
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Leigh 07:31 AM 10-04-2013
I am sorry that this happened to you. I would never hesitate to ask an inspector to respect my home and my children. I would have told her that the children are trying to rest, so why don't you go work over here, and directed her to an appropriate spot. I would have asked her to keep her voice quiet. And I certainly would have disciplined the children that were acting up, so it looks like you ARE in control of the situation. I have often had to correct a child in front of their therapist, a food program sponsor, a social worker, or a licensing inspector.

As far as your rights go, you do have rights, but when you assert them, you risk retaliation if you assert them. You have the right to be treated respectfully, but really, when a child is hurt in your care, you need to let them inspect, and expect that they are going to look for ANYTHING you may be doing wrong-that is their job.

If you are being made uncomfortable by the inspector, don't hesitate to discuss it with him/her, you may get an explanation of what's going on, or the inspector may change her methods. Best of luck on NOT getting a write up-we ALL know how quickly accidents happen with fearless kids!
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Memc2001 09:12 AM 10-04-2013
You DO have rights and a copy of those should have been provided to you at the visit.

To be honest, this is the crap that is taking me out of this business. The stress of it is unbelievable.
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Maria2013 09:47 AM 10-04-2013
you have all the right to be upset and I would call her supervisor as suggested above
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craftymissbeth 09:54 AM 10-04-2013
Licensors should in no way be rude or disrespectful to providers, but she's just doing her job. She was there to investigate an incident and to ensure that everything is in order and that you truly are not to blame for the child being injured. My licensor specifically stated that she will wake a sleeping baby/child, spend an entire day with us, or ask questions of the children in order to make 100% sure that everyone is safe and all regulations are being followed... and that's just for our initial inspection! If we are investigated/inspected due to an incident then she'll simply dig deeper.. not looking for anything specific, but just making sure. If she inspects my home and then something happens to a child later on due to something she missed that would be on her. Perhaps her job would be fine, but her conscience not so much.

ETA: I forgot to add that if I felt my licensor was in the wrong or being unnecessarily "nosy", for lack of a better word, then I would speak to her supervisor without hesitation.
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TwinKristi 10:02 AM 10-04-2013
This is honestly my worst fear. I was so anxious over my inspection just to get licensed, I cannot imagine if there was an accident and I had to call someone to come in. Ugh. I'm so sorry!!
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KIDZRMYBIZ 11:24 AM 10-04-2013
Wow, OP, I am so sorry you have to endure this. And like a previous poster said, you are not alone.

One of my first years, I had a dck with bruising that the parents blamed on me. There was a police investigation, and my license case-worker came later. She was very thorough, but not unkind, disrespectful, or threatening (unlike the officers). I realize they were all doing their jobs, and their methods all necessary, but knowing that didn't make it any less awful. I almost quit.

For a little while, I felt weird during daycare days, and fanatic about doing absolutely everything perfect. But, time marches on and it was finally behind me, and it definitely made me stronger. So, hang in there. Know that at least here, you have all kinds of support.
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Josiegirl 11:29 AM 10-04-2013
I've heard horror stories about stuff like this. IMO, inspectors should be there to help and support us. Point out what we're doing wrong, what needs to be corrected, etc. But then you get one that must be having an extremely bad day or a control freak or something and they can make the experience a living hell.
Her job should have been to evaluate, observe, document; respectfully, kindly, supportive. Yes, there was an accident but my goodness, accidents happen anytime anywhere.
For you, I hope it all turns out okay and you hear nothing more from the state. These people know the laws, know their job, but I swear they've never worked with kids. Either that or we're expected to build a giant bubble around our daycare.
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originalkat 11:48 AM 10-04-2013
Originally Posted by KIDZRMYBIZ:
Wow, OP, I am so sorry you have to endure this. And like a previous poster said, you are not alone.

One of my first years, I had a dck with bruising that the parents blamed on me. There was a police investigation, and my license case-worker came later. She was very thorough, but not unkind, disrespectful, or threatening (unlike the officers). I realize they were all doing their jobs, and their methods all necessary, but knowing that didn't make it any less awful. I almost quit.

For a little while, I felt weird during daycare days, and fanatic about doing absolutely everything perfect. But, time marches on and it was finally behind me, and it definitely made me stronger. So, hang in there. Know that at least here, you have all kinds of support.
Well said.
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